i am yours now (so now i don't ever have to leave)
by veroniques
Summary: Han, post Fast 6. Major spoilers.


_(This was plagiarised from me by another FFN user. That post has since been deleted, so I decided to post the work in its original form to my own account :) I hope you enjoy it.)_

* * *

He's been running all his life and he had always felt like if he could just get to Tokyo that things would be alright, that he would be home.

As it turns out, home slipped through his fingers on a dark night in Spain.

* * *

Mia has been shepherding him around for the past few days, shuffling him from a bed that he wasn't sleeping in to the airport to the taxi that has brought them here. They are back in Hong Kong, back to _'make arrangements'_, as Mia puts it, as though there's something to plan for, like Gisele is just going to pop up, unexpected like a bolt from the blue, like Letty.

They had only stayed at this place for a little over a month, just long enough for Gisele to wear dull marks into the hardwood floors with her boots and her heels. It used to drive him mad, how she could be incredibly careless with the little things. Usually he'd raise an eyebrow at her if she strode into the living room still wearing them, an unspoken little nudge. Usually Gisele would roll her eyes, push him down onto the couch. One leg straddled over his lap, hands in his hair, she would ask, _"Do you care about my boots now?"_

Han looks around at the piles of clothes, his and hers, things still haphazardly left behind, as if she'd just gotten out of bed that morning. Mia works quickly, sorting through the items, carefully avoiding any of Gisele's clothes. It is for Han to sift through these, through the motorcycle leathers and those boots, the short spangled dresses, her high heels, her pyjamas, the things pilfered from his wardrobe that he hadn't even realised were missing until now. All of it reminds him of her, he can't look at any of it without feeling that same punch in the gut that tells him she won't ever be coming back.

There was no body to bring home, there would be no permanent memorial, there is only this left of her and now they are sorting it all out, deciding what to keep and what to get rid of. The place even smells of her, that warm fruit and spice smell that was her perfume. His fingers itch and suddenly, for the first time in a very long time, he wants a cigarette.

"Pack it all," he tells Mia, turning his back to leave, "just put it all in storage."

It all goes. Her clothes, his clothes, the only thing he keeps with him is her necklace, a hand me down from her mother, she told him once. But even that he can't look at, just keeps it in his pocket and twists it into knots, like a set of worry beads.

* * *

He can't ride his bike anymore. When he does, he remembers her teaching him how to ride, insisting that they take the tight and winding roads of Puerto del Cubillo in what was only his second lesson.

"Fear is good." she had laughed, tossing him a helmet. "It makes you learn quicker." She was always saying things like that, things that reminded him that in another life, she had been a soldier. She had risked her life for something so big. It was strange to think what people were willing to give up their lives for.

* * *

He isn't sure what to do next. He knows Gisele's father is in Israel. Han never met the man, he only knew what Gisele had told him. Her parents were Brazilian, Sephardim who made aliyah to Israel when Gisele was 16, because her mother was sick, and wanted to see the Holy Land before she died. She hadn't seen her father in awhile, not since she left the military. He thinks of going to see him, but then what would he say? How could Han explain that this man's daughter died, for him?

Logically, he knows Gisele made a choice. He knows it's a choice he would have made, had their positions been switched. It was her life, or both their lives. She was a soldier and she had been good at it, and that meant having to make the hard choices. He knows all this, but part of him hates her for it, just a little, all the same.

He hates himself more. He can't sleep, not without getting a little drunk first, and even then, there are dreams. Han can hear himself telling her it was going to be okay, and he feels the sensation of her hands leaving his, before he wakes up out of breath, cold sweat making him clammy. Han never sees her face and he wonders if his subconscious is trying to protect him, or trying to torture him.

* * *

His bed is too empty now. Some nights all the space gets to be too much and he drags his sheets to the couch, still tossing and turning, until he flicks on the late night infomercials and sheer exhaustion takes over.

One night, somewhere in Berlin, he'd had a fight with Gisele. He doesn't even remember why, it was over something stupid, but it had ended with her storming out of the room through to the hallway entrance of their suite. He thought at first she was going to claim the couch for the night, but a few minutes later he heard her dial for concierge, then ask for another room. He followed her, incredulous. "What now, Gisele? You're going to pay for the penthouse suite, and sleep in another room?" She shook her head, cocking her head towards the door. "No. You are."

Later that night, while lying in a bed that is much less comfortable than the $5000 a night one he left, he feels her warm hands slip around his chest, holding him close from behind. He rolls over, kisses her hair softly, half asleep. Neither of them says anything about it in the morning.

(He pays the bill for both rooms.)

* * *

They hadn't even had to think about flying to London. As soon as he'd handed over the phone to Gisele, she'd been asking questions about weapons clearance and assuring Dom they would get the job done. _"We'll help you Dom, we'll bring her home."_ Gisele was good like that, she didn't hesitate at a challenge. She thrived on them.

He was glad Dom had Letty back. He really was. But that didn't mean he wanted to speak to her all that much. It probably wasn't fair, for him to feel the resentment he felt. She didn't ask them to rescue her, she didn't even know them from strangers on the street, really. It was easier, on both of them, if he just avoided her. After time, it became easier if he avoided all of them.

The last barbecue isn't the same. They're all going through the motions, grace is being said, toasts are being made but the food is dry in Han's mouth and the prayer no longer means as much as he once thought it might have.

* * *

Han leaves for Tokyo and doesn't look back. Roman calls him every now and then, leaves him messages when he doesn't pick up (_'just checking in on you, my brother, holla at your boy, okay?')_, but they never get further then that. He gets emails from Tej, mainly questions about electronics, every now and then a reminder, _'I can be in Tokyo in 18 hours, if you need.'_

Mia writes him long letters, telling him about the baby and the house and how Brian is worried about him, all but begging him to come back. He almost never answers them but he keeps them all, rereads them sometimes. He doesn't hear from Dom, Mia tells him in a letter, _'he just wants you to have your space, he's waiting for you to be ready. We all miss you.'_

Han wonders idly if it isn't really that Dom feels guilty. After all, if Gisele hadn't been so loyal to him, things wouldn't be like this.

* * *

Tokyo is okay. It's bright and it's loud and it's teeming with life and truthfully, it is completely wasted on him. One night, after the kid has gone to sleep, he thinks about what happened, after the fight at Waterloo. He hasn't allowed himself to think of that day in months. He and Roman had been walking back to the base, they came across a little side street, with a couple of antique jewellers hidden away in the dim light.

While Roman was negotiating with a taxi driver who didn't like the look of their blood stained clothes _("come on man, does this look like the face of a man who would lie to you? I'm a millionaire! M for money, I for I can pay you-"),_ Han had slipped down the laneway, eyeing the pieces in the window display. There had been a simple band, delicate, with etching around the side and a modest cut diamond in a square setting. He didn't know why, but he was immediately taken with it. Suddenly wanting to keep this moment private, more intimate, he turned away from the window, bookmarking the address in his mind.

He had never actually returned to buy the ring. There hadn't been time then, and, as it turned out, there hadn't been time left for her. There was a tiny superstitious, treacherous part of his mind that asked himself if he hadn't known, deep down, that they weren't meant to last. If, maybe, that's why he hadn't bought the ring.

That day, he decides to start double crossing the Yakuza.

* * *

He and Gisele never really had a talk about leaving Rio together. He was packing his bag, every one was counting their money and she sidled up to him, pushing her hair behind her ears in a gesture that to him already seemed uncharacteristic.

"So," she begins, fingers drumming lightly on the bench. "I have a place. In São Paulo. We'll have to go there first." He looked up at her. One eyebrow was arched and as he met her eyes, a grin slid across her face, lazy and confident.

"Alright," he nodded, zipping up his bag. "São Paulo it is."

* * *

When death finally comes to him, his mind feels nothing. It's like after all this time, after all the pain; there is nothing left, not sorrow, not relief. He feels only warmth slipping around his chest, and the quiet calm that envelopes him, even as he is dimly aware of being trapped in his own car.

_And then._

And then he is home.

* * *

_  
(I couldn't find any fic, so I had to write my own? Thanks to Lex and Farah for the lovely feedback, you've made it a lot less scary to actually post this gut punch. I apologise if my Tokyo Drift canon is a little off, I haven't watched that movie in ages, so I had to kind of fib my way through it._

_Title is taken from The XX's Islands, specifically the Shakira version, as I've had it on a semi constant loop over the past three days.)_


End file.
